Suggestions for ports

Impy

Well, that was easy to solve after some ducking: added signal.h to the includes of the file Aquaria/BBGE/Base.cpp , it now builds fully!

New problem: when attempting to run I get the error:

Error!: SDL_GL_LoadLibrary Error: No dynamic GL support in video driver

Does that mean I am out of luck here?

quicksilver

@Impy are you running this on a pi 4? If so you'll need to try running the game in an x session. Looking at some of the issue reports on GitHub I don't think this game is OpenGL ES compatible and is using desktop GL. Try launching the game with the command startx before your launching instructions. You may need to install xorg from the apt repository to get startx to work.

Impy

@quicksilver Wow! That actually worked (yes, compiling on a Pi4). Still looking at tweaking the performance (lower res, image quality settings, and/or overclocking), but 720p already runs fairly well.

Aquaria start screen

quicksilver

@Impy awesome! It's a good feeling when it all finally comes together and works. :) I have recently started going down the rabbit hole of compiling games for my pi 4 and it is quite addicting.

VictimRLSH

@quicksilver said in Suggestions for ports:

@Impy awesome! It's a good feeling when it all finally comes together and works. :) I have recently started going down the rabbit hole of compiling games for my pi 4 and it is quite addicting.

Same here, just getting started seeing what I can get to run. Maybe we can throw together a list of what may be possible and start in on it.

quicksilver

@VictimRLSH sounds good. Should we keep discussing here or start a new thread?

Impy

@quicksilver Indeed! I think I have also found a repo for a gles version:

https://github.com/lunixbochs/aquaria

It doesn't mention it in the readme, but I suspect those are the sources for the openpandora (hence gles) port.

I tried building that one too, but it's based on an earlier source, so it starts the errors even earlier. Would it be worthwhile to try to solve them (ie, could I expect better performance with that version)?

As for a new thread; a "Great Porting Threat" to share potential sources and tips&tricks to get them working would be welcome, I think.

VictimRLSH

@quicksilver said in Suggestions for ports:

@VictimRLSH sounds good. Should we keep discussing here or start a new thread?

Here for now, maybe start a new thread if it gets more popular. First, we need to acquire some targets. We can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games#Open_engine_and_free_content

Those games have free complete source code with free content, and would make ideal Ports because they can be played out of the box without the need to install ROMSs or asset files. Some of these are already available as ready to install packages in synaptic, they just need an install script and perhaps some configuration to run from Retropie.

VictimRLSH

I just scored my first victory! AstroMenace compiled (only had to hunt down 1 dev package too! alutdev installed easily via Synaptic) However, it runs DOG SLOW unless you go into the config menus and turn the quality setting to LOW, disable shadows and extra light points. It is actually a very complex shooter with a ton of ship and weapon configuration options, pilot character development, and economy. Would make a great port if we can hack together a script for it.

My system config: 4g Pi 4 no overclocking. Linux raspberrypi 4.19.118-v7l+ #1311 SMP Mon Apr 27 14:26:42 BST 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux

Installation steps I used in Terminal from Desktop:
sudo git clone https://github.com/viewizard/astromenace.git astromenace
cd ~/astromenace
sudo cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ./
sudo make -j4

It does not produce an install file, so "sudo make install" won't work, you need to start up the game by changing to the astromenace directory and running it with ./astromenace. I also needed to install libalut-dev package to get it to compile.

Is this enough information to create an install script for Retropie?
EDIT: I discovered it was running very slow because I had a full screen resolution of 1600 x 1280. Windowing it and running it in lower res was a huge performance boost.

quicksilver

@VictimRLSH looks cool, I'll have to check it out.

VictimRLSH

@quicksilver said in Suggestions for ports:

@VictimRLSH looks cool, I'll have to check it out.

Now that I got it to run much faster on the Pi 4, I'm going to try installing it on the Pi 3 controller mount and see if it runs at an acceptable speed.

EDIT: It compiled just fine, but I can't run it because it needs to open a display of at least 800x480 and my Pimoroni Hyperpixel is 720x480. I'm guess it SHOULD run, I could try it on the 3B+ on HDMI.

Unknown

I found a cool port https://www.flightgear.org/
Can anyone tell me how to download it to retro pie? I know it will work with a raspberry pi 4.

quicksilver

@Unknown instructions are here http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Build_and_run_FlightGear_on_Raspberry_Pi_4

Looks neat btw, I might try to build it. I have been having an itch to play flight simulator 98 recently and this might be the closest I can get.

Unknown

@quicksilver Is this something that could be submitted to retro pie on github as a pull request?

quicksilver

@Unknown if you or someone else makes a build script for it, sure.

VictimRLSH

Got Intruders Thunder 2 working, which brings up a question. Can .jar apps be executed from a Retropie startup script without a Desktop session running?

All I had to do was download IT2.jar from Sourceforge and run it from a Desktop Terminal.

java -jar IT2.jar

mitu

@VictimRLSH said in Suggestions for ports:

Can .jar apps be executed from a Retropie startup script without a Desktop session running?

Not unless the game has been specifically programmed with a graphical library that doesn't require X11. Generally, you'll need a desktop session to run graphical Java applications - such as the game in question (which uses Java Swing, which in turn requires X11).

VictimRLSH

@mitu I see there has been attempts to get a J2ME Libretro core working.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/11441/would-you-like-to-play-nokia-j2me-games-on-retropie/303

I can play many of them on microemulator, but that itself is a Java app that requires the Desktop session...

EDIT: Found an archive with 67,000 .jar games. Some work, some don't, if I attempt to curate this it could take the next 87 years. Still, it is a largely untapped base, much like Flashpoint. If these can be made to work from Retropie with install scripts and controller configured, it would be a huge addition to Retropie's game arsenal.

quicksilver

@VictimRLSH makes me think of candystand.com. I spent a lot of time on that site around 20 years ago playing the miniature golf flash game (shockwave game?) . 😂

VictimRLSH

@quicksilver You might be able to find that game in Flashpoint Infinity if you search for the original site name in its game database. Unfortunately I currently can't run that, at the moment the Pi4 is my only computer. It is doing an outstanding job as a primary PC though.